TIME is A SEEDFIELD: ETERNITY THE HARVEST. 



AN 



ADDRESS 



iDELIVERED BEFORE TH; 



PHILOMATHiEAN SOCIETY 



OP 



t^ENNSYLVANIA COLLEGE^ 



FEBRUARY 15, 1842. 



JBY henry W. THORP^ a. Mi 

Principal of Gettysburg Female Seminary. 



GETTYSBURG : 

PRINTED AT THE JOURNAL OFFICEi 

1842. 






In exchange 

Peabody Institute 
Dr'timore 
AUG 2 192B 



PhilomatJman Hall, Feb. I6th, 1842., 
:Mr. Thorp, 

Sir, — Allow us, in behalf of the Philomathaean Society, to 
tender you their unfeigned gratitude for the very learned and per- 
tinent address you did them the honor to pronounce on the eve- 
ning of their eleventh anniversary, and respectfully to solicit a 
.^opy for publication. 

Yours, truly;, 

JOHN M. RADEBAUGH, 
MICHAEL DIEHL, 
E. BREIDENBAUGH, 
SYLVANDER CURTIS, 
WILLIAM KOPP, 

Committee of Arrangemeut. 



Gettyshurg Female Seminary, Feh. 17th 1842. 

CrENTLEMEX, — My huiiible address is at the entire disposal of 
the Philomathaean Society. 1 wish it were more worthy of their 
acceptance. I may be permitted, however, to claim for it this neg- 
.ative merit, that it was written with a sincere desiie for the benefit 
of the Society. 

I am, gentlemen, 

Very faithfully. 

Yours, 

HENRY THORP, 
To Messrs. Radebaugh, Diehl, 
Breidenbaugh, Curtis, Kopp, 

Comiiiitlec uf An-augemeut. 



ADDRESS. 



Gentlemen of the 

Philomath^an Society, 



Revolving in my mind how I should best discharge 
the duty your friendly nomination imposed upon me, 
several subjects occurred to me which appeared cal- 
culated to afford you entertainment not unsuitable 
to the object of our assembling; but being impress- 
ed with the belief that something better than mere 
passing amusement for an idle hour should be at- 
tempted on such occasions, I at length determined, 
at the risk of being thought tedious, to endeavor 
to embody a few reflections of a graver character 
which have been for some time floating in my mind, 
and though, probably, they will not be new to you, 
if I do not over-estimate their importance, it may 
not be unprofitable to you to have them brought 
once more under your notice. Not to detain you 
longer with these prefatory remarks, I would beg 
you to consider for a moment. What should be the 
object of study ? — and I would put the same ques- 
tion to myself — to all — for all mankind are students. 
From the cradle to the grave, every man above the 
idiot is constantly engaged in study: the scholar at 
his books, and the handicraftsman at his loom, are 
alike educating themselves, and either may study 



for good or for ill. There is a knowledge of evil 
as well as of good, and it is worthy of remark, that 
when the Sirens of old sought to entice Ulysses to 
their fatal shores, it was with the promise of '•' new 
wisdom from the wise." Education, moreover, does 
by no means entirely consist in the acquisition of 
knowledge, but rather in the formation of habits; 
and are we not all daily forming or strengthening 
habits good or bad ? To use the words of a wise 
man, we are all daily rising towards the angel or 
sinking towards the beast : there is no point of rest 
between the two extremes. The mind of the waking 
man is ever active and it is of the first importance 
that it be well employed; — the rather because our 
occupations here, and the habits these occupations 
generate, will have a direct influence on our future 
destiny; — because it is in our power now, and the 
very purpose of our existence in this world of won- 
ders, to heap up treasures for another life;— because, 
in the quaint but expressive language of a living 
writer. Time is a seed-field : Eternity the harvest. 
Let me then ask you again. What is the object of 
your studies? and to assist you to answer the ques- 
tion to yourselves, I will, with your permission, pass 
briefly in review before you, a few of the most pro- 
minent motives by which I suppose various classes 
of students to be actuated, requesting each one to 
reflect to which of these classes he individually be- 
lonirs. 



There are men who appear to have no definite 
object before their minds : who pass their hours in 
hstless idleness, or, with the semblance of activity, 
flit from volmne to volume, from trifling occupation 
to trifling occupation, thoughtless as the butterflies 
of the summer's day, sipping honey-dew from every 
flower; and when the wintry storms arise, they have 
made no provision for the evil day; they have stored 
up no food for their support when the dreaiy land- 
scape lies buried in snow ; when the icy north sends 
forth its blasts, they have provided no refuge from 
their fury. Or if, perchance, they escape the fierce 
trials of adversity, if distress never assail them, 
affliction never befal them, surrounded with every 
blessing, they live discontented and unhappy amid 
their desultory occupations; — the sword is eating in- 
to its own scabbard ; — oppressed with an overpower- 
ing sense that they are living in vain, that they are 
useless on this earth, where all have their appointed 
work ; that they are burying the talent entrusted to 
them, and for which they know they must render an 
account. Do they now and then endeavor to rouse 
themselves from their supineness? The undiscip- 
lined mind is unequal to the vigorous and continued 
exertions which are required: after a few feeble ef- 
forts, they give up the task in despair, and, alas! 
they have lost for ever the power of mental appli- 
cation. 



8 

Others are ambitious: the applause of their fel^ 
low men is their goal, and none more eager in the 
race. For this they sit wakeful and watchful over 
the midnight lamp ; day after day, night after night, 
the eager toil is urged; needful rest, and food, and 
recreation, are denied to the attenuated body; the 
hue of health deserts the cheeks, and strength the 
limbs, and too late the mistaken youth starts to a 
sense of his woful error, as he sinks into a prema- 
ture grave. Or if his iron frame may bear the tax- 
ing, and he attain the coveted notoriety, digito prce- 
tereuntium monstratus ; if he find himself gradually 
ascending, with toilsome steps and slow, to the sum- 
mit of Fame's air-built temple; should he succeed 
in outstripping all competitors, and stand " in shape 
and gesture proudly eminent," the cynosure of the 
eyes of an admiring world, what has he gained ? 

The eager toy so keenly sought, 
Has lost its joy by bemg caught. 

In Literature or Art, in War or Politics, in Science 
or Philosophy, the world's applause is an inadequate 
reward: 

" For from the birth 

Of mortal man, the sovereign Maker said. 

That not in humble nor in brief delight, 

Not in the fading echoes of renown. 

Power's purple robes nor Pleasure's flowery lap. 

The soul should find enjoyment; but from these 

Turning disdainful to an equal good, 

Through all the ascent of things enlarge her view^ 



9 

^i\\ every bound at length should disappear, 
And mfinite perfection close the scene." 

An Alexander weeps that he has no more worlds 
to conquer, a Bruce sighs over the httle hillock of 
green sod, the long-sought source of the plenty-giv- 
ing Nile, and an Admirable Crichton perishes ob- 
scurely in a night-brawl, by the hand of an unworthy 
pupil. He who has most of the world's applause, 
best knows how little it is worth. Surpass Homer 
or vEschylus in song, Cicero or Demosthenes in el- 
oquence, Tacitus or Thucydides in history •, let your 
pencil equal RaphaePs in sweetness, or Titian's in 
color; strike out from the shapeless block a figure, 
beauteous as the Medicean Venus, 

"Where the goddess loves in stone," 

or his 

"The Lord of the unerring bow. 
The god of life, and poesy, and light. 
The sun in human limbs arrayed, and brow 
All radiant from his triumph in the fight ; " 

let your renown be co-extensive with the civilized 
world, 'tis after all, but as one passing by and leav- 
ing his foot-print in the sand. 

A third class, perhaps the most numerous, study 
to fit themselves for some particular profession: and 
while this is a legitimate object when kept in due 
subordination to higher motives, it is a miserable 
mistake when this is all that is sought. Such a stu- 
dent Schiller well describes as a trader in science 

B 



10 

The only aim of his industry, is to fulfill those con- 
ditions under which he may become qualified for his 
post or profession, and participant in its advantages ; 
such a man will, on the entrance to his academical 
career, have no more weighty concern than most 
carefully to sever those studies which he regards as 
means of subsistence, from all those which benefit 
the mind as mind alone. All the time devoted to 
these, he would think subtracted from his future 
profession, and would never forgive himself for the 
theft. Has he run through his academical course, 
and reached the goal of his wishes? he abandons 
his guide, for why should he trouble himself far- 
ther? The less his acquirements reward him in 
and for themselves, the larger remuneration does he 
crave from others. Not in the deep and hidden 
treasures of his own thoughts does he seek his re- 
ward: he seeks it in external applause, in titles and 
posts of honor or authority. Is he disappointed of 
these ? Who is more unhappy than the man who 
has cultivated knowledge with no purer or higher 
aims ? He has lived, he has toiled, he has watched 
in vain: in vain has he searched for Truth, if he 
cannot barter her in exchange for gold. " Pitiable 
man," exclaims Schiller, " who, with the noblest of 
all instruments, .science and art, can execute no 
more than the artizan, with the meanest! who, in 
the empire of perfect freedom, bears about the soul 
of a slave !" 



11 

Some study that they may impart the knowledge 
they laboriously acquire, to benefit their fellow-men: 
and this is an object worthy of -no small praise, for 
it is man's bound en duty to add, by all the means in 
his power, to the well-being of the common family 
of Adam, and he who ministers to the mind is not 
the least of benefactors. " There are infirmities," 
says the charming Sir Thomas Browne, " not only 
of Body but of Soul, and Fortunes which do re- 
quire the merciful hand of our abilities. I cannot 
contemn a man for ignorance, but behold him with 
as much pity as I do Lazarus. It is no greater 
charity to clothe his body than to apparel the na- 
kedness of his soul. It is an honorable object to 
see the reasons of other men wear our liveries, and 
their borrowed understandings do homage to the 
bounty of ours. It is the cheapest way of benefi- 
cence, and hke the natural charity of the sun, illu- 
minates another without obscuring itself To be 
reserved and caitiff in this part of goodness, is the 
sordidest piece of covetousness ; and more con- 
temptible than the pecuniary avarice. To this, as 
calhng myself a Scholar, I am obliged by the duty 
of my condition. I make not, therefore, my head 
a grave, but a treasure of knowledge. I intend no 
monopoly, but a community in learning. I study 
not for my own sake only, but for theirs who study 
not for themselves. I envy no man that knows 
more than myself, but pity those that know less. I 



12 

instruct no man as an exercise of my knowledge, or 
with an intent rather to nourish and keep it ahve in 
my own head, than beget and propagate it in his ; 
and in the midst of all my endeavors, there is but 
one thought that dejects me, that my acquired parts 
must perish with myself, nor can be legacied among 
my honored friends." 

But there is still a higher object at which the 
wise will aim: the building up of himself; the per- 
fecting his mental and moral faculties : this is man's 
chief business here on earth; compared to which, 
indeed, all other occupations sink into nothingness. 

" For some seek knowledge merely to be known, 

And idle curiosity that is. 

Some but to sell, not freely to bestow ; 

These gain and spend both time and wealth amiss, 

Embasing arts by basely deeming so : 
Some to build others which is charity, 
But those to build themselves who wise men be." 

Men are placed here in this mysterious world, 
each one with a life given him from heaven with 
eternities depending on it for once and for no sec- 
ond time ; each one's eternal destiny in his own 
hands. Our varied lots here are influenced by our 
parentage, our local habitation, and a thousand acci- 
dents, so called, beyond our own control, but not so 
in eternity. Each one will there have determined 
his own condition, either by having fulfilled the pur- 
pose of his disciplinary existence here, or chosen 



13 

rather the honors and the riches of this world. — 
Man's hfe here is a preparation for another : an op- 
portunity to sow Time's seed-field with good seed : 
in any other view it is an anomaly, not in harmony 
with the holiness and the goodness and the beauty 
of God's creation: a dark spot on a fair tablet, a 
shapeless ruin amid surrounding symmetry. Man, 
though created for happiness, is not susceptible of 
it, and with reverence be it spoken, it is beyond the 
power of the Omnipotent to make him happy with- 
out maldng him other than he is: and let me en- 
treat you not to expect the necessary change to be 
effected by a power above yourselves, suddenly and 
without any effort of your own, amidst the madness 
of a camp meeting for example, so that a man 
should be able to tell the day and the hour when he 
was all at once changed from the chosen companion 
of fiends to a fitness for the society of the spirits 
of the just made perfect; — believe it not! Moral 
qualities are not thus suddenly reversed, but the 
mighty change must be the work of unceasing toil 
through many years of painful yet hopeful eftbrt; 
assimilation to the purity of God the aim, and he 
who faints not shall commence on earth, by pa- 
tient continuance in well-doing, an humble imita- 
tion of the perfections of his Maker, a still increas- 
ing resemblance which shall continue through Eter- 
nity, like the asymptotes of the hyperbola, for ever 
approaching but never attaining its consummation. 



14 

And who shall say to what height of moral and 
intellectual perfection humanity may be raised by 
proper culture ? It would seem that even here on 
earth our various powers are susceptible of almost 
unhmited improvement. Take as an example Me- 
mory, one of the most important of the mental fac- 
ulties, without which, indeed, all the others were of 
httle value, for we know what we remember and no- 
thing more : what a vast disparity between the mem- 
ories of different men ! While one man has totally 
forgotten the subject of last Sunday's sermon, of a 
book he read but yesterday, or even an appointment 
made within the hour, a Cyrus recollects the name 
of the meanest soldier in his army, a Magliabecchi 
the situation of every volume in an extensive library, 
and a Porson is able to reproduce from memory an 
entire Greek Ms. which he had once read ; and with- 
out imphcit credence in the truth of these several 
stories, the fact even of their invention is conclusive 
evidence that these men must have possessed mem- 
ories tenacious in no ordinary degree. Whence, 
then, I ask, this prodigious difference ? Not so much 
from original diversity of constitution, (for neither 
are ideas innate nor is the power of recalhng them) 
as because, while one man has suffered idea after 
idea to pass through his mind leaving no deeper im- 
pression than the reflection of the summer cloud on 
the bosom of the lake, the other has gradually ac- 
quired the power of fixing his attention, and this is 



15 

the secret of the disparity. Whatever can awake 
the attention will not fall from the memory ; let him 
whose memory is the worst have some rich aged re- 
lative whose wealth he expects to mherit, I question 
much whether the periodical return of the occu- 
pant's birthday would escape the memory of the ex- 
pectant, and whether, at each annual recurrence, he 
would have much difficulty in stating with precision 
the patriarch's age : and is all this to be retained in 
the memory so much more easily than a historical 
or philosophical sequence, the paradigm of a verb 
in /M,/ or the demonstration of a geometrical theo- 
rem ? It is in the power of every one to acquire a 
good memory, like all the other faculties, moral, 
mental, or corporeal, memory will be strengthened 
by use and dwindle by neglect. 

But memory, so far from being treacherous, is the 
most faithful to its trust of all the powers of the 
mind : it never fails — it never will fail. Whatever 
is once fixed in the memory is fixed for ever, and 
not all Lethe's waters can wash it out. When the 
immortal spirit shall have quitted its frail tenement 
every thought, every action will recur in all its ori- 
ginal force; will be with it and continue with it 
through all eternity. On the death-bed, when the 
connexion between mind and matter is well nio^h sev- 
ered, every physician knows how vividly the thoughts 
and occurrences of by-gone years, long it was sup- 
posed entirely forgotten, present themselves myste- 



16 

hously to the almost disembodied spirit A man 
Rescued when nearly drowned declares that his whole 
life had in the moment of danger been, as it were, 
lived over again: the whole period had, in some 
way which he could not explain, been simultaneous- 
ly presented to him. 

Instances in exemplification abound: not, how- 
ever, to detain you too long, I will but recal to your 
remembrance one of the best authenticated. An 
ilhterate servant girl lying on a bed of sickness is 
heard by her attendants to utter words to them un- 
inteUigible which are discovered by some educated 
gentlemen, whose attention has been drawn to the 
phenomenon to be Hebrew. On closer observation 
consecutive passages from the Hebrew Bible, and 
the writings of the Jewish Rabbins were recogni- 
zed : a miracle was immediately proclaimed, and the 
circumstance certainly wore a very remarkable as- 
pect: the woman, I believe, could not read at all: 
assuredly had never learnt Hebrew : yet she could 
repeat passage after passage without hesitation. 
But, fortunately for the interests of philosophy and 
truth, some of the gentlemen who heard her determ- 
ined to investigate the matter more fully, and having 
made diligent inquiry into the young woman's his- 
tory, at length discovered that she had been, many 
years before, a servant in the house of a clergyman, 
whose custom it was to walk up and down a corri- 
dor reading aloud in the hearing of this poor girl, 



11 

while at her work in a neighboring room. The mii*^ 
acle was thus at an end, but a psychological discov- 
ery of the greatest interest was made, which has 
since been frequently verified. 

"Mysterious Memory, by what silver key 

Through years of silence, tuneless and unshaken 

Can thy sweet touch forgotten melody 
In the dim spirit once again awaken ? " 

If sounds without any meaning attached thus cas- 
ually overheard are imprinted in the mind so firmly 
what can bad memory be but a want of power to re- 
cal ideas which are faithfully retained; a not know- 
ing where, in that wondrous repository of " whatever 
old Time with his huge drag-net has conveyed down 
to us whether it be shells or shell-fish, jewels or peb- 
bles, sticks or straws, sea-weeds or mud," the pearl 
we seek lies hidden? There it is; there is all that 
ever entered but we have not accustomed ourselves 
to an orderly arrangement of our mental stores : the 
mind has been the mere passive recipient of what 
the current hour suggested instead of acting vigor- 
ously on all ideas presented to it; examining the re- 
lation of the new item of knowledge to other previ- 
ous acquisitions, and putting it away properly label- 
ed, as it were, into its appropriate depository. It is 
not the helluo lihrorum^ crammed to repletion with a 
heterogeneous mass of facts unconnected and unar- 
ranged, who is to be considered the accomplished 
scholar, but he whose mind is an armoury well 

c 



18 

stored with bright weapons all ranged in order, and 
ready for immediate use. Such a man was the 
learned Dr. Bentley, the greatest of Enghsh schol- 
ars, whose most extensive reading was all available 
to him in every emergency; who could with his 
single quill defend himself for years against the per- 
tinacious attacks of the whole University of Oxford, 
aided by all the wits of that most witty time ; and 
though the laugh of his contemporaries may have 
gone against him, in the unprejudiced judgment of 
posterity the victory was abundantly his. In reading 
his dissertation on the celebrated Phalaris controver- 
sy we are lost in astonishment at his apposite au- 
thorities, gathered from scholiasts and from authors 
whom but few ever look into : the whole of Ancient 
Literature seems at his command, and the quotation 
he needs is always drawn from its hiding-place how- 
ever obscure. 

But is not this permanency of impressions on the 
memory calculated to awaken reflections of the 
deepest import ? If these things are so, can it be 
indifferent to us now, or unimportant hereafter, what 
ideas are to abide with us through endless ages.'^ 
what seed we sow in Time's field which is to bear 
perennial fruit ? Does it not seem that one element 
of our future happiness or misery is in our own 
hands in a higher sense than we have been accus- 
tomed to contemplate ? Who does not shudder at 
the reflection that his most secret thought which he 



dares not breathe to his bosom friend shall dwell 
with him to be his torment for ever where the worm 
dieth not ? O should we not struggle strenuously as 
the victor at Ehs, perseveringly as the Patriarch of 
old to keep our minds and hearts pure and spotless? 
Ought we not to shun worse than a thousand deaths 
the slightest inward thought of ill ? Ought we not 
to be watchful lest a viper enter whose deadly sting 
shall for ever torment us ? Ought we not to be care- 
ful how and what we study ? w^hat books we read ? 
for many a fair chalice contains a poison which 
would continue its fearful workings world without 
€nd. Sweet as honey may the book be in our 
mouths, in our bellies it shall be bitter as worm- 
wood. Nor is it to be supposed that if om* very 
thoughts are to endure for ever, all traces of our ac- 
tions will be obliterated. I presume every one will 
unhesitatingly admit that nothing happens by chance; 
tliat what we call chance is direction which we can 
not see •, that the motion and course of every par- 
ticle of water that dashes down the falls of Niagara 
are subjected to laws as certain as those which keep 
the planets in their orbits, and could be as easily de- 
termined by a Being possessed of great mathemati- 
cal knowledge as the movements of a world. 

Sir Chas. Babbage was led, by some very extraor- 
dinary combinations presented by his ingenious cal- 
culating machine, to pursue this idea to an extent 
startling at the first perusal, but which seems fully 



20 

justified by subsequent consideration. " Those aeri- 
al pulses, says Sir Charles, unseen by the keenest 
eye, unheard by the acutest ear, unperceived by hu- 
man senses, are yet demonstrated to exist by hu- 
man reason. If man enjoyed a larger command over 
mathematical analysis, his knowledge of these mo- 
tions would be more extensive, but a being possess- 
ed of unbounded knowledge of that science could 
trace every the minutest consequence of that prima- 
ry impulse. Such a being, however far exalted 
above our race, would still be immeasurably below 
even our conception of Infinite Intelligence. Whilst 
the atmosphere we breathe is the ever-living witness 
of the sentiments we have uttered, the waters, and 
the more solid materials of the globe bear equally 
enduring testimony to the acts we have committed. 
If the Almighty stamped on the brow of the first 
murderer the indelible and visible mark of his guilt 
he has also established laws by which every suc- 
ceeding criminal is not less irrevocably chained to 
the testimony of his crime; for every atom of his 
mortal frame, through whatever changes it may mi- 
grate, will still retain adhering to it through every 
combination some movement derived from that very 
muscular effort by which the crime itself was perpe- 
trated. The soul of the Negro whose fettered body, 
surviving the living charnel-house of his infected 
prison, was thrown into the sea to hghten the ship 
that his Christian master might escape the Hmited 



21 

justice at length assigned by civilized man to crimes 
whose profits had long gilded their atrocity, will need 
at the last great day no living witness of his earthly 
agony. When man and all his race shah have dis- 
appeared from the face of our planet ask every par- 
ticle of air still floating over the unpeopled earth, 
and it will record the cruel mandate of the tyrant. 
Interrogate every wave which breaks unimpeded on 
ten thousand desolate shores and it will give evi- 
dence of the last gurgle of the waters which closed 
over the head of the dvins^ victim; confront the mur- 
derer with every corporeal atom of his immolated 
slave, and m its still quivering movements he will 
read the prophet's denunciation of the prophet king, 
— Thou art the man.'' 

Thus, then, ^vill the record of our every action be 
legible to the assembled worlds. There needs no 
accusing angel to fly up to heaven's chancery with 
the evidence of our guilt; there is no recording an- 
gel to blot out the word wdth a tear ; for we are 
hourly registering our own deeds and words on the 
great tablet of the Universe, and at the awful day of 
reckoning the legend mh stand out plain as the 
hand-writing on Belshazzar's wall and wait no Dan- 
iel to expound the characters. 

"In the corrupted currents of this world 
Offence's gilded hand may shove by justice; 
And oft 'tis seen the wicked prize itself 
Buvs out tlie law : but 'tis not so above. 



21 

There is no shuffling: there the action lies 
In his true nature, and we ourselves compelled, 
Even to the teeth and forehead of our faults, 
To give in evidence." 

What manner of Universe is this, then, where we 
are hemmed in on all sides with the consequences of 
each day's actions and these consequences extend 
to the eternal world : encoiled within the great 
chain of cause and effect, more firmly than Laocoon 
within the serpent's folds, from which all escape or 
respite for a single moment is impossible I Well 
may the affrighted soul exclaim how dreadful is this 
place ! And yet misunderstand not, suppose not for 
a single instant that God needs this record lest past 
events should glide from His memory. To Him 
there can be neither past nor future : His whole ex- 
istence is one extended JVow^ His knowledge admits 
of no increase and no change. 

Great, Incomprehensible Majesty of Heaven, to 
Thee the creation and the judgment day are simul- 
taneous ; already to Thee the last trump has sound- 
ed; the reprobates are in the flames, and the right- 
eous gathered into Abraham's bosom. 

Let us then well consider, consider with no hasty 
glance but with an earnestness commensurate to the 
momentous consequences which depend on our de- 
cision, what are proper objects of study; and having 
made our choice, let us pursue them with an unti- 
ring step, deterred by no difficulties, yielding to no 



2:^ 

opposition, turning not aside to the right hand or the 
left. Though here the Improha Siren Desidia allure 
us to repose on couches soft as the bed of Sleep 
himself, and there Calypso's flowery paths appear- 
ing to run parallel to the road we are travelling 
tempt us with a thousand charms, yet will we not 
quit our course, rugged and dusty though it be, nor 
pause in our journey though the sluggard exclaim 
there is a hon in the way. Up, Sluggard ! let us slay 
the lion ; for the road must be travelled. Now and 
through life let age quid agis be inscribed upon our 
banners. Whatever we do let us do it in earnest 
Let us never be content to stand with folded arms 
and say the object is unworthy of the effort; it may 
be so, but it is of the utmost importance to us to ac- 
quire well disciplined minds and habits of assured 
attention. Whatever is the occupation of the hour, 
whether reading a dry treatise, listening to a dull 
sermon, or a still duller address, always fix your 
minds intently and check in the beginning the wan- 
dering of the thoughts like the eyes of the fool to 
the ends of the earth. The gift may be too large 
for Perdiccas to receive but Alexander must not be- 
stow less. That whatever is worth doing at all is 
worth doing well is a maxim we should never forget. 
Our life is so short that we must up and be doing : 
we have no time to trifle, to loiter on our way, to lie 
listless on the river's brink till its current shall flow 
by. When we first awake to consciousness in this 



y 



World we find ourselves, methinks, as in a boat with- 
out oars or rudder floating rapidly down the stream 
of time : we amuse ourselves for a while in playing 
with the straws which are swimming on the surface, 
or in admiring as we glide along the fair flowers on 
the river's bank but we may not stay to gather them: 
onward proceeds our little bark with increased vel- 
ocity: at length we hear the roaring of the cataract 
but it seems distant and we heed it not: onward 
goes the boat; the sound of the foaming waters 
grows louder, but we cannot check our course. On- 
ward, ever onward, speeds the boat; and perhaps 
we wake not to a full sense of our position till it is 
on the brink of the yawning gulf, and with shud- 
dering recoil we sink into the abyss. 

O trifle not when so much depends on yourselves. 
No one in this world can afford to trifle and least of 
all the student. The trifler sows Time's Seed-Field 
with chaff, and when the days of harvest come, lo ! 
there is no crop; for Nature grows not chaff, and he 
who would reap in age must sow good seed in 
youth, he who would reap in eternity must sow good 
seed in time. Are there difficulties in the way ? so 
are there in the way of all: 'tis but the common lot, 

" nil sine maffno 



" Vita labore dedit mortalibus," 

and few difficulties offer long resistance to vigorous 
effort; they fly like the visible horizon before those 



25 

who advance. Go forward and some unseen path 
will open among the hills. Contend unyielding with 
the Palafox watch-word, War to the Knife ! and be 
assured ye shall conquer for the battle itself is vic- 
tory. 

But difficulties! Gentlemen, what difficulties have 
we ? Consider what was the position of the student 
before the invention of printing; in the total ab- 
sence of elementary books; when one of the larg- 
est libraries known, that of the Counts of Benavente 
contained no more than 150 volumes and many of 
these were duplicates ; when an estate was to be 
given for a book which now may be had for a dol- 
lar;* and when at such a cost the treasure was ob- 
tained the eye could not pass lightly as now over 
the hot-pressed page but it was written in a cramped 
crabbed hand rendered still more obscure by the 
multitude of contractions which the scarcity of wri- 
ting materials introduced and perpetuated. Yet ob- 
serving the goodly list of honored names which 
those evil times have handed down to us, reflecting 
that every now and then there arose one and anoth- 
er whose attainments would have done honor to any 
age, and that in the darkest periods there never 
failed a httle band to keep alive and pass the torch, 
I am deeply grateful to the good Providence of God 

*In the year 690 Alfred the wise of Northumbria gave 800 
acres of land for a single volume containing the history of the 
World. 

D 



26 

which inspired these men with such patient industry 
for our advantage in these latter days and humbled 
to the dust that we make so poor a use of our su- 
perior facihties. Permit me to carry your thoughts 
back a thousand years of the world''s history and 
point out to you a successful student of the ninth 
century. Of royal parentage and himself a king^ 
in his youth without books or instructors, in his 
manhood without leisure or tranquillity, engaged for 
years in the defence of his country against enemies 
whom no treaties could bind, no generosity move, 
at one disastrous period a fugitive reduced to take 
refuge in a herdsman's hut, you will have perceived 
that I am speaking of our glorious Alfred, suffering, 
moreover, all his life from a painful disease, we find 
him devoting himself to study with all a lover's ar- 
dor: nor were his studies confined to barren specu- 
lations or merely resorted to as a sweet relief from 
the fatigues of government or the toils of war ; but 
even the few hours his weighty duties left him were 
employed in the service of mankind. Let the mod- 
ern student in his comfortable chamber, zealous in- 
structors at his elbow and thousands of volumes at 
his command, if he is ever disposed to complain of 
difficulties, picture to himself this scion of a race of 
kings in his smoky, chimney less palace, the winds 
of heaven entering at a thousand chinks, even com- 
pelling him to use lanterns to make his light burn 
steady. Some of the fruits of his lengthened vigils 



27 

remain to us; translations into the language of his 
beloved subjects from the Holy Scriptures, from 
Boetius, from Orosius, from the Meditations of St. 
Austin and from any work within his reach which he 
hoped would humanize his people, interspersed again 
and again with most beautiful thoughts from his own 
pen. Such obstructions as beset the path of Alfred 
may not now exist for any, yet for our encourage- 
ment there still occasionally occur instances of op- 
position bravely met; of difficulties, compared to 
which ours vanish, steadily surmounted. 

In the latter half of the 15th century, the son of 
a poor boat-builder of Utrecht v/as seen, night after 
night, studying intently at the corners of the streets 
by the light of the public lamps for he was unable 
to purchase a candle: That poor boy gradually 
rose to be the head of the Rom.an Church, Pope 
Adrian VI. 

Think of the boy-hood of the learned Heyne ; 
read his pathetic description of his mother in tears 
and wringing her hands because she had no food to 
give her hungry children : see him ragged and bare- 
footed running and leaping along the streets, tossing 
his loaf of bread high into the air, because his god- 
father, the baker, had promised to pay a few pence 
per week to enable him to learn Latin ; though he 
was even then compelled to write out each day's 
lesson, for he could procure no books of his own. 
Again, see Gifford, the late honored Editor of the 



28 

Quarterly Review, a shoemaker's apprentice sitting 
up in his garret studying Algebra, compelled for 
want of pen or paper to work his problems on scraps 
of leather with a blunted awl. The eminent Chem- 
ist, Sir Michael Faraday, was a poor journeyman 
bookbinder. What situations could be more hope- 
less for students than these, yet these men and hun- 
dreds of others whose names might be added per- 
severed against hope till well-merited success crov^^n- 
ed their efforts: diligent laborers in Time's Seed- 
field they at length reaped an abundant reward. 

And now, Gentlemen, having suggested what ap- 
pear to me the most powerful motives for Self-cul- 
ture that can operate on mortal man, it may be ex- 
pected that, before I conclude, I should point out 
how the task is to be performed, that I should shew 
in what Self-culture consists, and deduce particular 
rules from the principles which have been laid down: 
but having already trespassed so long on your kind 
indulgence, I can merely make a few brief and gene- 
ral remarks. And first, I would say, remember that 
in all your studies and in all your life. Truth, Eter- 
nal Truth is to be sought with a single heart: for 
falsehood is an evil seed and can produce but evil 
fruit. Truth indeed, says Milton, came once into the 
world with her divine Master, and was a perfect 
shape most glorious to look upon. But when He 
ascended and His apostles after Him were laid 
asleep then straight arose a wicked race of deceiv- 



29 

ers who as that story goes of the Egyptian Tryphon 
with his conspirators, how they dealt with the good 
Osiris, took the virgin Truth, hewed her lovely form 
into a thousand pieces and scattered them to the 
four winds. From that time ever since the sad 
friends of Truth, imitating the careful search that 
Isis made for the mangled body of Osiris, went up 
and down . gathering up limb by limb still as they 
could find them. Be it ours. Gentlemen, to join the 
search. 

What a bright exEimple of sincerity was exhibited 
by the great Newton after his magnificent conception 
of the simple laws which regulate the planetary mo- 
tions! When, from a latent error in his elements, 
his careful calculations of the moon's revolutions 
showed a variation of about one sixth for which he 
could not account, preferring Truth to Reputation, 
he at once dismissed his hypothesis as false and ap- 
pears to have thought no more of it for years; till at 
length, a more accurate measurement of a terrestri- 
al degree having been made, he repeated his calcu- 
lations with the corrected degree, and he was well 
rewarded for his noble sacrifice; his conjecture be- 
came certainty, one of the sacred limbs of Truth at 
once and for ever to be united to the rest. Such is 
said to have been Sir Isaac's agitation when the cal- 
culation was drawing to a close and coming out as 
he hoped that he was unable to carry it on and a 
friend completed it for him. Truth alone indeed 



30 

may not constitute a great man, but it is the most 
important element in a great character. Whatever 
you undertake to do, do it in sincerity with your 
might. He whose heart is not in his work is a 
mere hollow quack: he is deceiving all who have the 
misfortune to employ him and he is still more fatal- 
ly deceiving himself; for he is generating in himself 
habits of negligence which will cling to him with the 
tenacity of the old man of the mountain. Do good 
to all, for God is good, and one act of goodness will 
make its successor easier and the deed itself is its 
own rich reward; for beneficence also grows by 
being exercised. Have always 

" A tear for pity, and a hand 
Open as day for melting charity." 

Let no opportunity of doing even a little good 
escape you. 

"Great blessings to bestow we wish in vain 

But all may shun the guilt of giving pain : 

And he whose kind and gentle hand removes 

The obstructing thorn that wounds the friend he loves, 

Smooths not another's rugged path alone 

But scatters roses to adorn his own." 

I would have you beneficent, not for the sake of 
the little good you may have it in your power to do 
to others but for your own advancement towards the 
perfection at which it is your duty to aim; and the 
old man who, unmoved by the scofiings of the self- 



SI 

ish and the sneers of the worldly-wise, was planting 
trees that future generations might enjoy their friend- 
ly shelter, was but humbly imitating the beneficence 
of his Master who maketh his sun to rise on the 
evil and the good, and sendeth rain on the just and 
on the unjust. Drive away the starving suppliant 
from your door : the loss is not his but your own. 
He may obtain from your more charitable neighbor 
the relief which your churlishness refused him but 
your hard heart has become harder by the deed; 
you have taken a step in your downward course and 
are more than before unfitted for that happy place 
where Charity never faileth. Cultivate also habits 
of order for the works of God are orderly, and flat- 
ter not yourselves that it is a mark of genius to de- 
spise order: this is a rock on which thousands of 
gallant barks have struck. 

But perhaps some one is ready to remark: Seek 
self-perfection and the good of all mankind ! Be 
strenuous, persevering, sincere, a lover of Order, 
and a lover of Truth ! there is nothing here more 
suited to the student than to the peasant, the learn- 
ed than the ignorant, the inmate of the College halls 
than the tenant of a cottage : and it is true there is 
not. Nor is wisdom confined to the chamber of the 
student, nor does she consist in the possession of 
large libraries or even of great knowledge. Many 
a gray-haired peasant, whose whole library is his 
Bible and his Prayer-book, is a wiser and a better 



32 

man, than the haughty scholar who contemns hirri. 
Many a poor Pariah who knows no book but the 
book of Nature is a wiser and a better and a hap- 
pier man (for wisdom and goodness are happiness) 
than the lordly Brahmin who would deem himself 
polluted should the Pariah's breath but reach hnn : 
for to the pure in heart all nature is filled with les- 
sons of wisdom. 

" In solitudes 



Her voice comes to him through the whispering woods 

And from the fountains and the odors deep 

Of flowers. 

And from the breezes whether low or loud 

And from the rain of every passing cloud 

And from the singing of all summer birds 

And from all sounds all silence." 

A man who has been shut out from the knowl- 
edge of books may yet have sedulously cultivated 
his moral feelings and it unhappily is sometimes 
found that where there is an excellent head the 
heart is merely a piece of hard flesh. This, how- 
ever, is not the probable, nor the usual result of 
even mental culture; nor do I undervalue the im- 
mense advantages the scholar possesses if he be but 
true to himself and make a proper use of them. To 
him is opened the rich store-house of all that the 
wise and good of former ages have left, history to 
inform, philosophy to improve and poetry to delight 
him. It is the scholar's own fault if he have occa- 



33 

siori to complain that he has spent his time for 
nought and labored without reward. Richly were 
he repaid for all his labors if he could read no 
more than the wondrous peripeteia in the closing 
books of the Iliad — the Greeks on the verge of des- 
pair, most of the chiefs lying wounded, Patroclus 
dead, the whole army dispirited, the very wall which 
they had built around their fleet as a last refuge bro- 
ken down, Hector and his victorious troops press- 
ing irresistible to fire the ships, Agamemnon himself 
counselling flight while means of escape remain, 
when one man arises in his might and the scene in- 
stantly how changed ! From that decisive moment 
the fate of Hector and of Troy is sealed and the 
action hurries on without pause or rest, gods and 
men minghng in the fearful strife, Simoeis and Sca- 
mander rushing to engulf the dauntless Achilles 
whose death-dealinc^ sword has crowded their chan- 
nels with the slain, and Vulcan wrapped in flames 
hastening to his rescue, still nothing can appease 
Achilles' direful wrath but Hector's life-blood: Hec- 
tor, beloved by gods and men, must faU: Hector, 
who should have been the gentle poet's hero if the 
tempestuous times had permitted him to gratify the 
yearnings of his heart ; for on his peaceful virtues 
the poet's kindred spirit loves to dwell and amid the 
fierce victor's exultation, no reader of Homer and, 
I dare beheve, no enraptured listener in the ancient 
banquet hall to the rhapsodist's inspiring song but 

E 



34 

has siglied at the unworthy fate of the Hector whom 
we love. 

Again, may not the scholar read dehghted, the 
dark fatahty of the Athenian drama; in what myste- 
rious ways the awful decrees of destiny are fulfilled 
by the very means intended to avert them? May 
he not read the mighty woes of Oedipus and, for the 
hundredth time, await with breathless anxiety the 
dread discovery which is to hurl from the summit of 
human felicity the monarch enthroned in his sub- 
jects' love, their former deliverer from the abhorred 
Sphinx, how dark and deep a fall ! Another radiant 
page displays the benevolent Prometheus, him who 
conferred on our miserable race the blessino^ of fire 
and taught us how to use it (in these latter days of 
triumphant science the reader can not refrain from 
passing in his mind the incalculable benefits we 
have derived from the gift) and who does not sym- 
pathize with this gracious benefactor of mankind 
chained to the Caucasian rock, exposed alike to 
winter's cold and summer's scorching noon, yet rising- 
godlike above his sufferings and master of the fate 
of his persecutor till he has been considered a 
heathen type of our blessed Savior himself upon the 
cross? Thousands of fountains of innocent delight 
and of wisdom are opened to the scholar from which 
the illiterate are debarred. When wearied with the 
turmoils of the world how sweet to retire to the 
peaceful study and forget the present in converse 



with the soges of ancient times! Books are com- 
panions in sohtude and the charm of society, the 
soothers of affliction and the grace of prosperity, 
for books, says Milton, are not absolutely dead things 
but do contain a potency of hfe in them to be as 
active as that soul was whose progeny they are : nay 
they do preserve as in a vial the purest efficacy and 
extraction of that living intellect that bred them. 

" This books can do, nor this alone ; they give 
New views to life and teach us how to live. 
They soothe tlie grieved, the stubborn they chastise, 
Fools they admonish, and confirm the wise. 
Their aid they yield to all ; they never shun 
The man of sorrow, nor the wretch undone. 
Unlike the hard, the selfish, and the proud. 
They fly not sullen from the suppliant crowd. 
Nor tell to various people various things, 
But shew to subjects what they shew to Kings." 

Who shall estimate the value of books to old age 
when the enfeebled limbs refuse their work and the 
grasshopper is a burden ; and the mind, deriving ht- 
tle pleasure from the external world, is thrown upon 
its own resources ? 

While they who in youth* have made no provision 
for age are left like an unsheltered tree stripped of 
its leaves, its branches shaking and withering be- 
fore the cold blasts of winter ; the age of a man of 
cultivated mind is often more complacent and even 
more luxurious than the youth. It is the reward of 
his due use of the endowments bestowed by nature ; 



36 

and when he dies his thoughts, reminiscences and 
intellectual acquirements die with him to this world 
but to this world only. If they are what they ought 
to be they are treasures laid up for heaven. That 
which is of the earth earthy perishes with wealth, 
rank, honors, authority and other earthly and perish- 
able things but nothing that is worth retaining can 
be lost. Affections well placed and dutifully cher- 
ished, friendships happily formed and faithfully main- 
tained, knowledge acquired with worthy intent and 
intellectual powers that have been diligently im- 
proved as the talents which our Lord and Master 
has committed to our keeping, these will accompany 
us into another state of existence as surely as the 
soul in that state retains its identity and its con- 
sciousness. 

"For all that's gained of all that's good 
When time shall this weak frame destroy, 
(Its use then rightly understood,) 
Shall man in happier state enjoy. 
Oh ! argument for truth divine, 
For study's cares, for virtue's strife ; 
To know the enjoyment will be thine 
In that renewed, that endless life." 

And now, Gentlemen, to conclude, what I have 
sought to impress upon you, to the best of my poor 
ability, is my entire conviction that our condition 
when we shall have shuffled oft' this mortal coil and, 
by separation from the organs of sense, are instant- 



37 

aneously cut off from all communion with the mate- 
rial world will result directly from the degree of cul- 
ture our minds and souls shall have received. I 
would not have you rest upon the general conclu- 
sion that the virtuous will be happy; the wicked 
miserable : for I am firmly convinced that the parti- 
cular kind of happiness or misery will be the direct 
result of a particular cause as truly as the nature of 
the crop depends on the nature of the seed: that 
the moral qualities of the soul will not be changed 
in kind though possibly developed in degree : that 
as the tree falls it will lie. For example, that a man 
who has been envious to the day of his death will 
continue envious for ever, and will consequently by 
his own act and deed be irrevocably shut out from 
all hope of happiness; for no one will suppose the 
envious could be happy even in heaven itself: the 
universal joy would but furnish additional food for 
the malignant passion and add directly to his mis- 
ery. That the recollection and the consequences of 
our actions here will accompany us into the world 
of spirits is evidenced alike by Reason and Revela- 
tion. Whatsoever a man soweth that shall he also 
reap, that and not some other thing, and if here, its 
voice drowned by the diversions and occupations 
of the world, and its stings blunted by the dullness 
of our earthly body, a disturbed conscience has the 
power to cry : Sleep no more ! Macbeth shall sleep 
no more! what mortal tongue shall describe, what 



38 

mortal heart conceive the tortures of him who must 
bear the goadings of his evil passions and the com- 
panionship of his evil thoughts for ever and for 
ever ? Is happiness then your desire ? It is ; for all 
desire it. Let it be through life the first object of 
your study to qualify yourselves for it by opposing 
every imagination, every thought which an angel 
might not entertain, and by cultivating, as much as 
in you lies, the kindly feelings which will fill the 
minds and constitute the happmess of those who 
shall be judged worthy to be placed at God's right 
hand, and believe me, Gentlemen, those quahties 
which you must possess to be happy hereafter will 
make you happy even here. 



ri. 



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LIBRARY OF CONGRESS 



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